I don’t know how we can support this monster given his history:
"KNEE SPREE" MANHUNT ENDS IN GUNFIRE, ARREST, QUESTIONS
By Doug Wilson, Editor-in-Chief
San Jose, CA, 9:59PM (UPDATED at 10:34PM)
Dustin Brown, suspected Serial Kneer, was arrested on Sunday by authorities working out of the greater Bay Area.
"We finally got him," Sgt. Thornton said, a visible tear in his eye. "I can never forgive what he did to my deputy. Tomas had such a bright career ahead of him. One of the best deputies I ever had. Now, of course, he's dead. But we got the man responsible."
The "Knee Spree," as it was recently coined, has left a bloody, turbulent trail across much of the North American west coast, with crime scenes from the Bay Area all the way to Calgary, Alberta. Investigators initially believed the Spree was the work of multiple men, perhaps copycats, or perhaps even a wider cabal of Serial Kneers, Elbowers, and Headbutters. The crime wave crossed multiple state lines, inevitably international lines, and left in its wake the bruised and battered hopes and dreams of those it victimized.
"I didn't even see him coming," Jaden Schwartz, a St. Louis man, told the Mercury News. Schwartz famously survived his own run-in with the Serial Kneer several years ago. "Just suddenly, an appendage flew out of the darkness. Didn't see where it came from, or where it went after that. Scariest thing I ever saw. Lucky for me it missed, but it coulda killed me, man."
Others, of course, were not as lucky as Schwartz, including Deputy Tomas Hertl of the SJPD. Before Hertl passed away from complications resulting from Tweaked Knee Syndrome (TKS), he provided investigators with one of the first sketches of Brown's ghoulish though somewhat childlike visage.
"Without Tomas, today isn't possible," Sgt. Thornton exclaimed at an emotional press conference Monday morning. "Tomas gave us the sketch. Tomas gave us Brown's face. TKS has taken so many lives now." Thornton paused to stare blankly into the mid-distance for several moments.
"It's all over, at least," he concluded, eyes glassy.
After spending weeks collecting evidence, investigators finally closed in on Brown's Los Angeles compound early Sunday morning. A heavily armed Brown was suspected to put up a fight, but surprisingly, he surrendered peacefully. In fact, the only shot fired was a brief, nearly disastrous confrontation between Orange County authorities and the SJPD. The Orange County Officer accused of discharging his firearm before the raid on Brown later spoke to the Mercury News:
"Don't know what came over me," Officer Getzlaf said. "I just looked over at the SJ group, and I swear one of 'em looked like a full grown rat wearing man's clothes, like somethin' out of a horror movie. Half man, half rat. Ugliest guy I've ever seen." Getzlaf paused to wipe visible sweat from his gleaming head. "I was spooked, ya know, and I fumbled with my gun, and it just went off. It was an accident. We've all been on edge these last few years."
On edge, indeed, the very edge of the Knee Spree, which originally came to national attention sometime in the spring of 2012. Though some leading researchers claim it was going on long before then.
"These kinds of serial predators, they don't just randomly start hurting people," claimed Dr. Shane Doan, a professor of criminal psychology at University of Arizona. "Sometimes they start as young as six months. Crawl right over to mom or dad, headbutt them right on the patella. It's sick behavior. Lifelong behavior. Brown is never going to change. He's a sick, sick man."
Brown was booked into Santa Clara County Jail late Sunday morning. This is an ongoing story.
